British Interests, cabinet papers that recall the starving children of the Biafran war

Michael
Leapman on cabinet papers that recall the starving children of the Biafran war

BIAFRA was one of the great emotive
causes of the late Sixties. The name still conjures up images of emaciated
children, close to death, starved as a result of the blockade imposed by the
Nigerian Federal Government to defeat the secession of the country's Eastern
Region. I was there, and the images do not fade.

Britain, the former coloniser of Nigeria
and its main supplier of arms, could not escape involvement. As the outcry over
the famine grew, Harold Wilson's government came under attack at home and
abroad for providing the weapons that tightened the noose on Biafra.

The war began in 1967. Cabinet papers
for that year, just released, show how the decision to continue arming Nigeria
was not based on arguments for or against secession, or on the interests of its
people, but on backing the likely winner. It is a case study in realpolitik. As
one Commonwealth Office briefing document to the prime minister put it:
"The sole immediate British interest is to bring the [Nigerian] economy
back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment can be
further developed."

The Biafran secession was the
culmination of a long period of tribal and regional unrest in Nigeria that had
come to the boil with the assassination in January 1966 of Sir Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, the Prime Minister, in a coup led by General Johnson Ironsi. The new
military ruler was an Ibo, the dominant tribal group of the Eastern Region. In
May that year, thousands of Ibos were massacred in the Northern Region in riots
against Ironsi's regime. A further coup in July was led by Maj-Gen Yakubu
Gowon. Fearful of renewed massacres, the Ibos of the East sought autonomy under
their military governor, Col Odumegwu Ojukwu. He declared the region's
independence, as the state of Biafra, in May 1967.

As more recent conflicts in Eastern
Europe show, it is hard to judge the rights and wrongs of other people's ethnic
fears and hatreds. In any case, the cabinet papers make clear that right and
wrong were the last considerations on anyone's mind. Oil, trade and the
protection of British citizens dominated the decision-making process. If
today's Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, really wants to introduce an ethical
basis for policy-making, he should read the file to see how radically he needs
to change the diplomatic mindset.

The bulk of Nigeria's foreign earnings
derived from oil and most of it was in the Eastern Region. Shell-BP, then
partly owned by the British government, was the largest producer. After
secession, Col Ojukwu demanded that royalties for oil production should be paid
to Biafra and not to the Federal Government. Shell agreed to make a "token
payment" of £250,000. The Commonwealth Office at first proposed to support
this decision on the grounds that Col Ojukwu was in de facto control of the
oilfields. Harold Wilson bridled at that: "Dangerous argument - cf
Rhodesia" he scrawled in the margin of the policy paper. Rhodesia
unilaterally declared independence in 1965 but Britain was urging that nobody
should recognise it, despite the regime's de facto control.

Gen Gowon imposed a blockade on Biafra,
which meant that no oil could be exported anyway. This was a blow for the
British economy, already floundering in the crisis that led to devaluation
later in the year. Now the prime object of Whitehall was to get the blockade
lifted. An important lever fell into British hands when Gen Gowon asked for
more arms: 12 jet fighter-bombers, six fast patrol boats, 24 anti-aircraft
guns.

George Thomas, Minister of State at the
Commonwealth Office, was sent to Lagos. The Commonwealth Office note to Wilson
about the mission was explicit: "If Gowon is helpful on oil, Mr Thomas
will offer a sale of anti-aircraft guns.'' The plan went awry. Gen Gowon would
not lift the blockade but he got his guns anyway; planes and boats were
refused, but the Nigerians were permitted to take delivery of two previously
ordered patrol boats - which ironically helped enforce the ban on Shell-BP's
oil shipments. In August the Biafrans scored a military success (their only
one, as it turned out) when they marched into the Mid-West Region and occupied
Benin. This provoked a rethink in Whitehall. The Commonwealth Office set out
five choices. A and B involved maintaining or increasing arms to Nigeria, C was
to stop all supplies, D to promote a peace initiative and E a combination of
the last two. Thomas wrote to Wilson, holidaying in the Scillies, recommending
Option E. That view might have prevailed had not Sir David Hunt, British
ambassador in Lagos and a keen advocate of the Federal cause, flown to Britain
and persuaded the government to continue providing arms.

Soon the war turned in Gowon's favour
and in November the flexible Thomas wrote to Wilson again, proposing this time
that arms supplies be stepped up: "It seems to me that British interests
would now be served by a quick Federal victory."

That victory came, but not
quickly.During 1967 the words "famine" or "hunger" appeared
nowhere in the hundreds of official documents devoted to the conflict. They
would not emerge until 1968, when I and other reporters went to Biafra and
witnessed the scenes for ourselves. By then the policy was too set to be
altered. Too many reputations depended on the war's outcome. The conflict went
on for another two years. Millions of children starved. How many would still be
alive if that one slim chance had been grabbed back in August 1967 and Option
E, E for ethical, had prevailed?

- THE INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY 4
JANUARY 1998. (posted to Igbonet by Obi Taiwan)